“Arbitration Call For Auckland Radiographers Industrial Dispute”

“The bitter dispute between radiographers and the Auckland District Health Board has reached crisis point and should be referred to arbitration if scheduled negotiations are unsuccessful,” said Mr Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, today.

“This dispute is out of control with patient safety seriously threatened with senior doctors and nurses left to hold the system together. Radiographers have said that they will go to arbitration but health managers are blocking access for what appear to be ideological reasons. If Auckland’s health managers can’t adopt a more pragmatic position then Health Minister Annette King should actively encourage them to do so.”

“The conflict is being made worse by prissy immature behaviour by managers in attempting to undermine the leadership of the radiographers through unhelpful demeaning attacks. All this does is to make a satisfactory resolution harder to achieve.”

“Management is also making unhelpful misrepresentations over alleged flow-on effects if they were to improve their pay offer. They focus on percentages but this is misleading when the increase is on a low base, the actual dollar increase is modest. Further, most other health employees have already achieved recent settlements with the Auckland DHB.”

“Arbitration would sort out fact from fiction and reveal the truth. This dispute requires responsible mature leadership to resolve it and if senior management at the Auckland DHB can’t provide it, the Health Minister should require the board to change its management’s direction,” concluded Mr Powell.

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